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I recently dunked some cakes in milk and noticed that the fluffy mycelium growth on the cakes came off with the milk. Some of the cakes look pretty bare and not very white. Is this normal? Should I incubate and let the mycelium recover or start initiating now?

Any one using cakes should try original flavor rice dream or some other ricemilk. It works really well. If you look at the ingredients you'll see that its made from brown rice; exactly what the fungus is used to growing on anyway! Just take your cake put it back in its jar (make sure jar is clean), pour in some ricemilk most of the way to the top, fill the rest with hydogen peroxide, leave for ~18 hours. Take cake out, rinse with water, spray with a diluted peroxide solution and put back in terrarium.

Expect big repeating flushes!!

This method has been keeping me from casing cuz it seems to work better I'll still case but this method seems like an easy way to get similar or better results.

--------------------"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."
- Marcel Proust

As always, you want to be reasonably sterile, but once you have a colonized cake the fungus can fight off contaminates pretty well. The hydrogen peroxide, limit of ~18 hours (I'd say definitely no more than 24), and the rinsing after the dunk all help keep the cake from getting contaminated. Also one cool thing is that as the hydrogen peroxide naturally decomposes in the solution it releases oxygen which is good for the mycelium obviously and helps it keep from going anaerobic. An anaerobic situation would mean that only non oxygen breathing organisms (bacteria) would be living/surviving/multiplying.

In summary, just use the given technique and common sense and you should get great results! Oh and by the way, this can be done right after you birth the cake, just get rid of any extra vermiculite and dunk away! Get a bigger first flush!

Happy harvesting

--------------------"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."
- Marcel Proust

well, couldn't you just dunk the cake right after you birthed it, and then when its done crumble and throw in a casing? this seems like it would work, the casing would get some nutrients right before it has to recover from the crumble